Good night and best of British
Estimates is just getting into stride now after a day of limbering but I think we’ll fold the Politics Live tent for this evening. Today has been all the things a day in national politics always is: live, real, special, noisy.
Let’s summarise, in no particular order.
Malcolm Turnbull woke up to a nice poll; the immigration minister Peter Dutton blasted refugee advocates for providing conflicting accounts about the treatment of an asylum seeker allegedly raped and impregnated on Nauru; the Australian Border Force said sorry for the outbreak of pure Numptyville that was Operation Fortitude; a separate estimates hearing confirmed that a person or persons unknown allegedly annihilated a marble table in the cabinet suite after a lively farewell party for Tony Abbott – but fortunately the former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop had not made off with some of the royal crockery from her old suite; former government senate leader Eric Abetz throught journalists sneered at conservatives and Christians while Christopher Pyne thought they didn’t provided people kept excessive displays of religiosity to themselves; the foreign minister Julie Bishop pretended the government had always loved the Human Rights Commission; Labor wondered what if any policies had changed courtesy of Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to the leadership of the Liberal party; Turnbull thought he’d get back to Labor on that point; Scott Morrison thought the answer to every question in question time was Labor is deeply stupid; officials from the department of prime minister and cabinet thought that the specific prime ministerial beverage preferences of Tony Abbott were a private matter even though they were funded by the taxpayer; Labor senator Penny Wong thought she’d never seen anything quite as disgraceful as that particular obfuscation.
Phew, eh?
We’ll be back at the same time tomorrow. First up, the government’s response to the review of the financial system. Have a great evening. Rest up. See you tomorrow.
Updated
The PM&C officials (with ears ringing) have now been excused. In the chair currently is the new National Security Legislation Monitor, Roger Gyles. He’s just told the committee he’s signed off today on a new report to the prime minister on section 35P of the Asio act – this is the section that criminalises publication of information about special intelligence operations. This is the section that media organisations want repealed on the basis that criminalising publication is a draconian curb on speech. We’ll all be very interested to see that report, and this timeline means it should be in the public domain by the end of the year.
Wong is completely furious at this performance from officials from the department of prime minister and cabinet. It’s quite clear the officials want to give as little information as possible as to how this particular decision was arrived at.
The LDP senator David Leyonhjelm is not amused either.
You can’t avoid the conclusion there is something to hide.
Quite an amusing tussle going on in the finance committee at the moment concerning an FOI request made by the Labor senator Penny Wong concerning the former prime minister Tony Abbott’s beverage preferences.
It looks like the FOI request has been knocked back substantially on the basis that Abbott’s beverage preferences was personal information. The beverages were of course procured courtesy of the taxpayer. Wong is shouting about this being an episode of Utopia.
Meanwhile, in the other committee.
Malcolm Turnbull asked secretary of PM&C for conflict of interest advice on his investments the day after he became PM #estimates
— Heath Aston (@HeathJAston) October 19, 2015
The talking points have landed
Finance is still on conflicts of interest and ministerial guidelines but I need to tune back in to immigration estimates. Earlier today I flagged the imminent release of the talking points associated with the botched Operation (Reverse Ferret) Fortitude. Folks with me all day will recall I mentioned the talking points had been sought under a freedom of information request.
Sadly, the talking points don’t help reduce confusion about this operation, and they contradict evidence given to the estimates hearing earlier today.
Officials earlier today told the committee there was nothing unusual about the operation proposed for Melbourne despite the hyperbole in the press release, which kicked off the protest in Melbourne.
But the talking points say: “This is the first time ABF officers have been involved in an operation of this nature.” Just in case we missed it: “The ABF regularly participates in inter-agency activity. This is the first time we’ve been involved in an inter-agency operation of this size and nature.”
Officials also told the committee earlier today there was never any intention to stop people and demand they produce identity papers. But the talking points say: “ABF officers will be positioned at various locations within the Melbourne CBD speaking to individuals who we suspect may be in Australia illegally without a current and valid visa. We will be speaking with a range of individuals we come across as part of this operation.”
Only one word for this whole sortie: bizarro.
Just while the finance committee has plunged into the weeds we can post our #BrickParliament re-enactment of the table annihilation.
These #BrickParliament characters shaking it in the #BrickCabinetSuite may be recognisable to regular readers, but of course we make no specific allegations. We remain unaware of the true culprits. We also remain confused how it is actually possible to break a marble table.
Just for the record, here was the email correspondence tabled in the estimates inquisition earlier on today reflecting efforts by the Department of Parliamentary Services to work out how and when a bespoke stone table had been totalled in the cabinet suite.
Hi
As discussed, following on from the function on Monday night, we understand that a small round marble table is missing. The cleaners went into the area on Tuesday morning and undertook a major clean-up of the area. No additional costs were incurred as a result of this clean-up. It is understood that the table may have been damaged by a person standing or dancing upon it. Anecdotally we have been advised that pieces of the table top were present on the floor Tuesday morning and more pieces have since been seen in ministerial offices. As the table in question forms part of the status A and B furniture collection it is essential that this item is accounted for, and properly written off if it has been damaged beyond repair. Staff from my branch have not been granted access to this area to determine the validity of the reports of damage to the table. I will advise you if we hear any further information.
John Ryan Assistant Secretary Asset Development and Maintenance Branch Department of Parliamentary Services
There is so much to love about this email.
I’ve had a quick stocktake of estimates, and I think I’ll tune in to the finance committee for a bit. Right now, the Labor senator Jacinta Collins is asking about the prime minister’s pecuniary interests.
In the chair, the attorney-general George Brandis.
I can tell you senator all the prime minister’s disclosure obligations have been complied with.
Collins says she’s interested in pursuing any potential conflicts of interest – not the prime minister’s tax affairs (which were the subject of debate in parliament last week.)
I did promise pictures. This man always sends such tantalising pictures. Makes me want to do a little sequence.
The view from the backbench. Once was prime minister. Once was treasurer.
Clap hands everyone, here comes the afternoon.
The treaties committee has just now tabled a report on the agreement I refuse to call CHAFTA on the basis that the acronym is entirely hideous. This would be the China free trade deal. The majority of the treaties committee likes it, which is an utterly unsurprising development. The news we are all waiting for is whether the government and Labor can come to peace love and harmony on the outstanding points of concern about the deal. We are still waiting, but I suspect we won’t be waiting for too much longer.
Looking back before we stride forward. Just before question time, the innovation minister Christopher Pyne was interviewed on Sky News. Delightfully, Pyne was asked what he thought of the former government senate leader, Eric Abetz, declaring in The Australian this morning that the parliamentary press gallery hates Christians and conservative folks. I posted a link to this chucklesome exit interview earlier today.
Pyne noted that he was and remains a Catholic, and journalists seem not to despise him.
Q: Let’s move to Eric Abetz, if we can. I am sure you would have diligently read his comments to Sharri Markson for The Australian,an interview that she conducted with him. Firstly, do you agree with the sentiment that he’s expressed in terms of the way that religious folk – you’re one yourself – are treated by the Canberra press gallery?
Christopher Pyne:
Look, I’m not going to agree or disagree with Eric’s personal views about how Christianity or other religions are covered in the press gallery here in Canberra. We are a secular, pluralistic nation, with many religions represented, but by far and away, the dominant religion is Christianity, it still represents about over 70% of the census in terms of how people determine themselves. I’m a Catholic, and I’ve never hidden that, I must admit I have never had a bad story out of the press gallery because of being a Catholic or a Christian, and I think we have to make sure we keep religion as separate from politics as possible, while always using everything we’ve been taught and learnt over a lifetime to inform our views and improve our knowledge of the kinds of decisions we make in public policy. So I’ve never resiled from being a Catholic and how that has formed and shaped my life and my views, but I’ve never been criticised by the press gallery for that.
Updated
Further questions have been placed on the notice paper. I’ll share some more chamber pictures shortly and then we’ll need to swing back into estimates and the honey joys of the political afternoon.
There’s been a fight about whether a question from Labor’s Anthony Albanese on the Melbourne metro was directed to the correct minister. He wanted to ask a question to Jamie Briggs. Christopher Pyne says the question needs to go to the senior minister.
Manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, is being a little bit sly.
I can understand why they don’t want the minister for the cities to come near the table. I can understand why they won’t. It was a reasonable question.
(If you don’t speak Canberra, and therefore can’t fathom this reference, it is alleged that Briggs was dancing on a table at Tony Abbott’s farewell party, the same alleged party that allegedly annihilated a marble-topped table. Now you geddit, don’t you?)
Updated
Hello.
Good bye.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen wants to know if growth for this financial year was revised up or down in government forecasts.
Scott Morrison wanders non-specifically around the point.
Bowen throws the gratuitous the point of order.
The answer is down, if the treasurer doesn’t know that he should just acknowledge it.
Bye bye Chris. He’s been shown the door under 94A.
Shadow climate minister Mark Butler tries to get a question to Turnbull, which the prime minister waves off to the environment minister Greg Hunt.
Q: Is the prime minister aware that not one company will be forced to reduce its carbon emissions under the government’s new Direct Action regulations, according to a new report from Reputex?
Hunt has a large crack at the accuracy of Reputex.
He then proceeds to ignore the substance of the question. Hunt repeats the projections that were made public at the time the government announced its post 2020 climate targets for the UN Paris conference. The capacity of the Direct Action policy to deliver on these projections has been questioned by a number of credible groups, not just Reputex (which incidentally has a very high reputation for analysis in this space.)
Hunt ends thus:
So we took a carbon tax which was failing to reduce emissions in any significant way and which was driving up our electricity prices and we offered Australia two things – lower electricity prices and lower emissions.
(Don’t know that that would clear the fact checkers either, minister.)
Updated
Bill Shorten is back at the dispatch box inquiring what precisely Malcolm Turnbull has changed since becoming the Liberal party leader, given he’s just said the policies remain on foot unless they are derailed by the Senate.
Turnbull says rail funding, public transport funding and innovation.
In terms of my own leadership as prime minister, a very obvious example is that the federal government is more than ready to finance urban infrastructure, road and rail, and does not discriminate between the two. As you can see, that is a very significant shift. It’s been very much welcomed across Australia and we are looking at urban infrastructure without discriminating as to whether it is road or rail. I gather members opposite have welcomed that too. Another factor that again has received greater emphasis since the change of prime ministership is clearly that of innovation and that is a very key priority for us and that’s a very significant one.
Q: Can the prime minister confirm that it is still the Abbott-Turnbull government’s policy to increase the cost of medicine by up to 60% for pensioners this year?
Malcolm Turnbull:
Can I simply say that the government’s policies are unchanged. Our policies will change often in the face of an inability to get them through the Senate and we will have to renegotiate and you will see examples of that, and policies are reviewed and reconsidered.
But all of our existing policies and proposals, whether they are before this House or in policy statements by ministers, remain on foot.
I want to make this very clear, I want to make this very clear to the honourable member, and she has some shared responsibility for this, the budgetary situation that we were left with required the government to make some tough decisions.
It required some tough decisions to be taken and they have been taken. Not all of them have been able to secure support in the Senate, not all of them have been popular. But bringing this budget, our budget, our nation’s federal budget back into balance over the cycle is going to be a very difficult challenge, a long-term challenge, we understand that.
But honourable members opposite have got to bear in mind their share of the responsibility for this. The honourable member was sitting in this chamber when Kevin Rudd was PM and we begged him not to spend so much during the global financial crisis.
We begged him not to.
He went ahead and spent. He spent so much, so wasteful, he drove our budget into deficit and did so for no benefit for the Australian people or our economy. And that is the mess which we are cleaning up.
(No benefit? I suspect that wouldn’t clear the fact checkers, PM.)
Now the deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, is back to the second Sydney airport. Warren would like to know everyone’s thoughts on this project. Bring me your thoughts. He thinks it’s tremendous.
Updated
Turnbull gets a question now on whether it remains the Liberal government’s policy to continue its GP tax by cutting $2m in Medicare rebates?
The prime minister is getting mildly irritated.
Can I just say that all of these questions relating to spending – whether it is in terms of social welfare, transfer payments or in health – all have to be seen in this context: that it is absolutely critical for the security of our economy, for the prosperity of our economy, for the jobs of the future, to ensure the government lives within its means.
Updated
Scott Morrison on the endless, ceaseless, Turnbull government.
Those opposite have learnt nothing, absolutely nothing from their time in opposition. That’s why they will never be ready to come back to government.
Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek wants to know if it remains the government’s policy to cut $80bn from schools and hospitals over the next decade. That’s a question for Scott Morrison, the treasurer. It’s unclear whether he remains committed to anything apart from alleging Labor’s generalised idiocy.
Manager of government business and innovation minister Christopher Pyne is deeply excited about innovation. Very deep excitement.
Q: Will the government support Labor’s policy on high income superannuation tax concessions which will raise $14bn over the decade?
Malcolm Turnbull:
The answer to the honourable member’s question is no. The government is not going to support the opposition’s policy.
The government will consider all suggestions, all ideas of superannuation and tax. We said we are carefully considering a lot of these matters but is the government going to take a rubber stamp and stamp ‘approved’ on every suggestion from the opposition? The honourable member knows that. He is wasting question time by requesting questions to which he knows he will get a perfectly predictable answer.
Labor asks the new treasurer, Scott Morrison, how much revenue the government’s multinational tax avoidance measures will raise. Morrison thinks hundreds of millions, probably. But it’s much better to talk about how stupid Labor is. (He’s not very good in this new role, is he? Perhaps he’ll improve.)
Labor wants to know whether the government’s university deregulation package is dumped or merely on the back burner. Malcolm Turnbull wants to know how Labor will pay for its higher education package.
Clive Palmer has the crossbench question. He clearly wants to reform bankruptcy regulations.
Turnbull likes the cut of Clive’s jib.
The prime minister:
While the various changes and reforms to insolvency, corporate insolvency, have resulted in more flexibility, there are powerful arguments, I believe, for looking more closely at these issues of business continuity. The chapter-eleven procedures in the United States are, I have to say, like most practices, business practices in America, very legalistic and I don’t think anyone would recommend taking a facsimile of the American law and inserting it into Australia. But certainly considering greater measures to ensure greater business continuity, they are very good issues to discuss, very good issues to consider.
Perhaps Clive is thinking of a proposal he raised as opposition leader to assist business continuity. Perhaps this period was a happy time for Clive. There’s a but.
Malcolm Turnbull:
Not so happy for me, I can assure you.
Updated
First Dorothy Dixer is to the prime minister – how much do you love New Zealand? (Turnbull went across the ditch this past weekend to visit John Key.)
Turnbull confesses he’s a big fan of New Zealand, and its leader, John Key.
I have to say that we’ve all been admirers, at least on our side of politics, of the leadership John Key has shown as the PM of New Zealand. He’s taken a pragmatic and business-like approach to reforming the New Zealand economy. He’s constrained spending. He’s driven strong economic growth and he’s brought their budget into balance. He’s a real role model, I think, for centre right governments such as our own in Australia and of course right around the world.
(There are certainly some in the Turnbull circle who think John Key should be the new Australian prime minister’s role model.)
Question time
It being 2pm ..
Labor opens the hour of glower by asking the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, to update the lower house about the circumstances surrounding the asylum seeker allegedly raped and impregnated on Nauru.
Dutton is revising the account that he gave to the ABC this morning of her movements and interactions with various services. He says he gave the interview to Fran Kelly this morning to correct misleading statements being made about the case by people at the margins of the case.
Dutton:
The fact is some of the detail is factually incorrect. I thought it very important in my interview with Fran Kelly to correct the record and provide the advice about the assistance the government was providing.
Updated
Hockey to bow out of politics on Wednesday
Joe Hockey is planning to deliver a valedictory speech to the parliament on Wednesday. The member for North Sydney lost his position as treasurer in the reshuffle after Malcolm Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister last month. Hockey announced at the time that he intended to resign from the House of Representatives, although the timing was unclear. Guardian Australia understands Hockey is planning a valedictory address to the lower house on Wednesday morning, subject to the finalisation of the notice paper. His formal resignation from the parliament – after nearly 20 years as the MP for North Sydney – will occur at a later date that is yet to be decided. The step would be likely to trigger a byelection for the seat given the next general election is due in abut a year.
Updated
Question time is of course coming up at 2pm – gives me a moment to duck down to the thread and have a word.
Debates, I've had a few ..
I didn’t have time to mention earlier on that the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, was accompanied earlier today at the UN human rights function by the attorney general, George Brandis.
Brandis of course led the charge against Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs earlier this year when some strange person imagined it suited the government’s political fortunes to press for war. I was interested in how Brandis would square his circle, and can now report the circle was squared in the following fashion.
George Brandis:
Occasionally, and minister Bishop alluded to this, there may be domestic political debate about human rights, and that is a good thing that there should be such debate, but that debate takes place against the background of Australia being one of the world’s most rights respecting, one of the world’s most tolerant and one of the world’s most generous nations.
Updated
While we were all watching tables and such, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young (as I flagged earlier) in immigration estimates went round and round the case of the asylum seeker who was brought to Australia for a termination and then was taken back to Nauru on a charter flight, without having had the procedure. After grinding over the now bitterly contested accounts (which again, I flagged earlier on today), Hanson-Young made the following declaration to officials at the table.
She didn’t meet your abortion deadline, so that’s it – fly her out of the country.
That is harsh.
Updated
Politics this lunchtime
The mild magnificence of the political morning is best savoured with a lunchtime summary, so let’s proceed.
Monday, high noon.
-
Malcolm Turnbull can mark up another promising poll result. The latest Ipsos survey puts the government in an election winning position and also indicates Australian voters vastly prefer the notion of Prime Minister Turnbull to Prime Minister Shorten. Like, vastly. While there is a positive Turnbull bounce in evidence in the early field work, a couple of cautionary notes. 1. This is Ipsos, which seems to be the most volatile of the newspaper surveys (Newspoll had the major parties deadlocked at 50-50 only a week ago) and, 2. The standing caveat that applies to all quickie analysis of any single survey – watch the trend, not the blip. Portents are good, but a bit early to say anything hugely meaningful about the impact of the leadership change just yet.
-
Attack apparently being the best form of defence, immigration minister Peter Dutton has blasted refugee advocates for providing allegedly inconsistent accounts of the treatment experienced by an asylum seeker allegedly raped and impregnated on Nauru. Aggressive finger pointing in this shocking case looks set to continue.
-
The foreign minister Julie Bishop has pretended this government actually loved the Australian Human Rights Commission all along as part of efforts to secure membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2018-20 term. Quite probably Julie Bishop did love the AHRC all along, but some colleagues have only recently discovered their deep feelings for the AHRC. All things liable to change without notice.
-
The immigration department and Australian Border Force have both apologised for issuing a press release telegraphing their collective intention to subject Melburnians to random identity checks as part of Operation Fortitude – a botched initiative from a few months back that was cancelled after the public either burst out laughing or took to the streets in horror at this ridiculous overreach of state power.
- Estimates delivered a pre-lunch smorgasbord: royal crockery that went missing (gasp) from Bronwyn Bishop’s Speaker’s suite (subsequently returned and stored, phew); the saga of the alleged annihilation of a marble table in the cabinet suite at a farewell party for Tony Abbott (that table is still annihilated, sadly, although loyal Liberal senators suspect a fault in the marble rather than fault among allegedly inebriated servants and fellow travellers in the court of the former king Tony); the removal costs of the Brandis bookshelves; Kevin Andrews’s tenacious possession of John Howard’s Chesterfield lounge.
The exciting thing is there is more to come.
Do stay with us.
Updated
On Chesterfields and bookshelves
Off the table annihilation now.
Two questions to the officials. Where is John Howard’s famous Chesterfield lounge, which was subsequently used by Kevin Andrews when he was defence minister?
Still with Andrews apparently, he’s taken it with him to the backbench office.
Has the attorney general, George Brandis, taken his famous bookshelves with him to his new suite as Senate leader?
Yes, he has. At a cost of $1,822.
Updated
The Senate president, Stephen Parry, is expressing concern that parliamentary cleaners reported the alleged contents of ministerial offices.
Wong says hang on a moment – you aren’t concerned about the destruction of commonwealth property but you are concerned about cleaners reporting that they saw shards of the marble table in ministerial offices?
Penny Wong:
Perhaps have a go at the people who broke it.
Parry says he’s concerned both about the destruction of property and about any breaches of privacy in the building. Wong looks less than convinced.
Updated
Is this a smashed table I see before me?
Updated
#TableGate in two pictures.
Bernardi thinks it is entirely circumstantial that reports of marble shards in ministerial offices accompanied the smashing of an actual marble table in the cabinet suite at Tony Abbott’s farewell. There’s no proof anyone trousered bits of the marble table. No proof at all.
Penny Wong to Cory Bernardi:
You want to pretend there’s some other sort of marble, fine.
Bernardi is also holding the line on the structural weakness point. The table has suffered a malfunction, he says.
This #marbletable is what's known by DPS as "Status A" furniture; bespoke items made for the opening of Parliament House in 1988. #estimates
— Naomi Woodley (@naomiwoodley) October 19, 2015
Photographs of the table have now been tabled. The marble top is smashed in half. Fragments are still missing.
Tough day at the office for DPS.
Erin Noordeloos, DPS assistant secretary for the security branch before the Senate Finance and Public Administration committee this morning in Parliament House, Canberra. Monday 19th October 2015. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian
Wong is now reading from DPS internal correspondence about the table. The correspondence would appear to suggest bits of the smashed table were subsequently removed from the cabinet suite to other ministerial offices. (Trophies? Wut?) The correspondence also references suggestions the table was smashed when people danced on it.
The DPS official tells the committee both the dancing and the alleged trophies were anecdotal observations. The department had no access to the area at that stage, so the report was speculative.
Bernardi counsels the witness against speculation.
The table, purchased in the 1980’s, was valued at the time of purchase at around $500. DPS has sought quotes for replacement cost. One quote is under $1,000 another quote is well over that price.
How about the base of the table? It was cracked apparently.
Liberal senator Dean Smith is trying manfully to blame the victim here. How do these officials know this wasn’t a crook table to begin with? A bad egg.
Dean Smith:
It might have been a structurally poor table.
Cory Bernardi, helping:
Q: Was there any evidence of natural weakness in the stone?
Penny Wong wants to know how often DPS staff are denied access to suites in the building when they seek access. The officials suggest it is not uncommon to delay in order to reach a suitable inspection time.
Wong asks what reason they were given for the lack of access in this specific instance?
DPS official:
As far as I am aware there was no reason given.
Cleaners went in and out all week, just not the DPS officials who had sought access. Abbott’s farewell party was early in the week – but no access was granted to the cabinet suite until the 18th. The official has told the committee DPS did not ask for a reason when they were denied access.
The table was eventually retrieved. Were there photos taken, Wong asks? There were photos taken, the official says. Wong says she’d like those today. I suspect we’d all like those today, truth be told.
Labor’s Penny Wong is now back into the fate of the marble table. The evidence being given now suggests Parliament House cleaners first discovered remnants of a marble table in the PMO. Officials then sought access to the prime ministerial suite. We believe there had been a table damaged but we had no access to the area, the Department of Parliamentary Services official tells the committee. We were not allowed access until the Friday.
Updated
Officials can deliver the breaking news on the royal china. It’s all back in storage. The sixty pieces are stored and happy. Huzzah.
Coming up, the table.
Quite a party ..
DPS grilled on damage to marble table, during Abbott's party in Min Wing of Parli House after ousted as PM @abcnews pic.twitter.com/LHtrnPlgCf
— Matthew Doran (@MattDoran91) October 19, 2015
For folks sweating on that marble table (allegedly) smashed at Tony Abbott’s (allegedly) boozy farewell, fear not.
More particulars are being sought.
Bernardi says Labor will get to ask more questions on this subject once the relevant information is procured. I wonder how in fact you can smash a marble table? It seems like it would be quite hard to do that.
Updated
We are being buffeted by various potential parliamentary beverage and furniture scandals in the finance committee. Security now. The Liberal senator Cory Bernardi is very concerned that two unauthorised persons have gained access to a secure car park in the building by tailgating someone with a security pass. The official at the table remembers something vaguely about this. Bernardi is distinctly non-plussed with the lack of precision in this answer.
Bring back the crockery
The finance committee is now fascinated by some posh sounding crockery in the House of Representatives suite of former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop.
Apparently sixty pieces of crockery are currently MIA.
Further particulars are being sought. I believe these are royal china plates.
Updated
What is a bollard?
National senator Bridget MacKenzie:
When I think bollard ..
(A conversation is under way about whether a bollard is a bollard or a traffic control advice.)
Liberal senator Cory Bernardi tells Labor senator Penny Wong language is very important.
Penny Wong:
Yes, so George Orwell said.
Updated
In the finance and public administration committee, officials have been quizzed about a table that was smashed in the prime ministerial suite during Tony Abbott’s farewell party.
"Quite a party," says @senatorWong when asking an official abt a broken table in PM's office, when official describes it being in pieces.
— Sabra Lane (@SabraLane) October 19, 2015
Seems the siege mentality in the Abbott office even extended to Parl staff. DPS not allowed to see broken party table for days
— Heath Aston (@HeathJAston) October 19, 2015
DPS official John Ryan is now being given time to go & gather more information to answer questions about the broken PMO table. #estimates
— Naomi Woodley (@naomiwoodley) October 19, 2015
Bernardi helpfully suggests the marble table should be referred to as "damaged" rather than "smashed" #estimates
— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) October 19, 2015
Then a second item of business – bollard gate.
Parliament staffer who allegedly deliberately put a bollard in the way of a press pack has been investigated. "No case to answer" is finding
— Bevan Shields (@BevanShields) October 19, 2015
Back to immigration estimates, Green senator Sarah Hanson-Young is pursuing questions about the woman allegedly raped and impregnated in Nauru. The disputed facts about the Somali woman’s disposition when she was returned recently to Australia – the competing claims about whether she said she did not want a termination versus the position put by advocates that she wasn’t properly supported with services – are circling around, still without resolution.
The foreign minister has been stopped by reporters on her way out of the UN bid function. Strangely, I don’t think she was asked about the government’s newly warm relationship with the Human Rights Commission.
She was, however, asked about outgoing US ambassador Kim Beazley’s observations in the Australian this morning.
Kim Beazley:
As Australians, we do foreign affairs on the cheap. Washington is Australia’s information base and the significance of that has tended to increase as the foreign affairs department has been pared back over the years. It’s not good. I would think we would be well served by a more extensive department.
Q: What do you think of of Kim Beazley’s comments today that Australia does foreign affairs on the cheap?
Julie Bishop – yes Kim, but I’m a fixer ..
I certainly agree that successive Australian governments have not provided the kind of resources that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and our diplomats need to fully engage and pursue our interests internationally.
That’s why I have ensured that we are opening new posts overseas. In fact, in the first two years of this government, we’ve announced the opening of seven new posts overseas.
And I think that’s the largest number in any one announcement in decades.
Updated
I’ve just been attempting to refresh my memory about Julie Bishop’s personal exposure to the absurd mess the Coalition created for itself by belting Gillian Triggs for her various thought crimes earlier this year.
My memory is Bishop attempted to fade elegantly into the background while other colleagues lined up to punch themselves repeatedly in the head.
She did, however, play one cameo in late February, representing the attorney general, George Brandis, in the lower house. Bishop had to answer a question about whether or not Triggs was offered an inducement (ie: a new job) to exit her current post as AHRC president.
Ms Bishop told parliament Professor Triggs was not offered a new job.
There was no job offer made to the president of the Human Rights Commission. There was no request for her to resign and there was no inducement offered. A role was raised that related to international affairs. As the secretary of the attorney general’s department said in Senate estimates, it was a sensitive matter that he did not wish to give details of in Senate estimates, so I don’t give details of it.
The other Bishop, Bronwyn Bishop, was in the middle of the action.
During a special appearance on the Q&A program in June, while still Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bronwyn Bishop advised Triggs to run for political office given she was clearly a protagonist, not a distant observer.
Gillian Triggs, responding to Bishop:
My position is not a political one. We work according to the law at the Australian Human Rights Commission and we try to ensure that our evidence is accurate and well-founded. Unfortunately, of course, many of our findings and recommendations are interpreted in political ways. I’m afraid, in the human rights context, it is very hard not to be perceived to be political and that is really something we have to manage. I can certainly assure the Australian people that the Human Rights Commission operates in a very neutral way and we operate on the basis of the rule of law.
Updated
Sooo yesterday.
A short sequel by Politics Live – featuring human rights.
Julie Bishop:
Promoting national human rights institutions and building much-needed capacities will form the final element of our campaign. Strong national human rights institutions play a crucial role in promoting, preserving and advancing human rights.
We are working in close partnership with the Australian Human Rights Commission.
(Mind the whiplash, Gillian Triggs.)
Let’s leave silly stuff ups and silly walks to catch the foreign minister Julie Bishop, launching Australia’s candidacy for membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2018-20 term.
Bishop opens by acknowledging the president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs (amongst other guests.) This would be the lady the Abbott government tried to hip-and-shoulder-charge out of her post. As Hilary Duff once observed .. Sooo yesterday ..
Julie Bishop:
Australia’s candidacy is a measure of our longstanding commitment to promoting and protecting human rights, both in Australia and around the world.
Historically, our efforts, our record in the field of human rights, is strong and I have a particular interest in the rights of women and their role in peace, security and conflict, and the empowerment of women which is at the centre, in fact, of our aid program.
I was thinking perhaps it is something to do with my upbringing.
I am from South Australia and decades before federation, SA was one of the first places in the world to give, in this instance land-owning, women the right to vote, in 1861.
In 1895, South Australia extended the franchise to all women voters and women could stand for the colonial parliament, indeed SA women voted for the first time at the 1896 SA election.
Human rights, freedom, democracy.
These have been part of the very fabric of Australia from the beginnings as a modern nation.
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Proof that launching an airport plan and environmental impact statement can be a fraught business.
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Mike Pezzullo says (contrary to the impression given by the botched press release) there are no powers to interrogate people on the streets without reasonable suspicion.
Labor senator Kim Carr says the sum of the parts then means the agencies involved in Operation Fortitude were advertising an illegal act?
Pezzullo says a press release can’t be an illegal act.
Carr persists, pointing out the agencies were describing an operation that exceeded their statutory powers.
Pezzullo concedes that point.
It would be beyond power.
Just for the record, this was Roman Quaedvlieg’s full explanation/mea culpa for Operation (Reverse Ferret) Fortitude from earlier this morning.
Our role in that operation was limited to six ABF visa compliance officers in two static locations over two evenings in Melbourne’s CBD, providing a secondary advisory and support service where the lead agencies referred matters requiring immigration expertise.
This activity is a routine and regular component of our responsibilities. Last financial year we provided support to over 300 operations led by partner enforcement agencies across Australia.
Unfortunately, in the case of Operation Fortitude, the ABF issued a complementary media release which was factually wrong in describing its role.
This resulted in public confusion, concern and distress for which I apologise.
Down in the Blue Room, on the putative second Sydney airport, and Warren Truss is at pains to say the good people of western Sydney will not be troubled excessively by aircraft noise.
No one will have to do anything as unseemly as shouting over the noise of a plane.
Warren Truss:
Indicative flightpaths would indicate that when they reach the Penrith CBD, aircraft are likely to be above 5,000 feet and this would mean a noise level below 70 decibels.
That is equivalent to the noise that you would hear from a passenger car travelling on a suburban road.
We do anticipate that the noise levels around the western Sydney area will be manageable. They will generally be about conversational level in volume and rarely would people be required to raise their voices because of the fact that there was aircraft movements in the area.
Meanwhile, back with Operation Reverse Ferret Fortitude. Mike Pezzullo says it was never anyone’s intention to have ABF folks roaming the streets of Melbourne requiring people to produce their papers. The fact the press statement suggested something of the sort was a regrettable lapse in the context of a high tempo environment.
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Down in the Blue Room, the deputy prime minister Warren Truss is unveiling a plan for the second Sydney airport. I’ll catch us up with that shortly.
In estimates, we are still deep in Operation Reverse Ferret Fortitude. Quaedvlieg, under questioning from the Liberal senator Ian MacDonald, is describing an (abandoned) intention to swoop on a taxi rank adjacent to the Southern Cross station in Melbourne.
The officers would wear some kind of identification.
Probably a uniform.
Sticking with immigration estimates, Quaedvlieg is still facing questions about Operation Reverse Ferret Fortitude. He’s told the committee the immigration minister’s office was briefed about the proposal earlier in the week in late August – a media release went up for noting – but he, the ABF chief, was not.
That’s a bit odd, isn’t it, Labor senator Kim Carr inquires?
Nope, nope, nope says Quaedvlieg.
I don’t expect to be apprised of every operation.
Carr would like access to the talking points that accompanied the press release that went to the minister’s office. Immigration chief Pezzullo says that can probably be arranged because they will shortly be released in compliance with a freedom of information request.
More on Reverse Ferret Fortitude.
Roman Quaedvlieg on the “factually wrong” press release:
This resulted in public concern, confusion and distress, and for that I apologise.
Soz for that Border Force botch-up in Melbz
Various estimates hearings are now under way downstairs and I will keep you posted over the course of the day. Thanks to my colleague Shalailah Medhora for this breaking snippet.
Michael Pezzullo, the secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, which takes in Australian Border Force, has apologised for the confusion arising from Operation Fortitude. A “badly worded press release” gave the impression that Border Force could stop people and request they produce valid visas, Pezzullo said. “It does not,” he said. The incident, in August this year, prompted public outrage and mirth alike. Pezzullo said he and the commissioner of Border Force, Roman Quaedvlieg, “in the end are accountable for this regrettable incident”. A comprehensive review of the incident has resulted in a number of staff being formally counselled, and tighter controls on the release of press statements.
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One more Seinfeld reference and then I really must move on.
I was out of the office last week and as a consequence, had the time to watch the debate by Democratic party candidates for the US presidency.
Yes, sad to be watching politics on a week off, but there you go. The Politics Live community is precisely that sad sort of community.
If you missed the debate, and wish you’d seen it, watch this instead – it’s great fun, particularly Larry David as Bernie Sanders.
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Still with Seinfeld, Mike Bowers is rocking the Jerry look, just quietly.
only shoes I packed for Canberra are runners, borrowing the look from Ross Gittins-runners with suit @murpharoo pic.twitter.com/g7cJzkhcqt
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) October 18, 2015
To other matters now. Here is a short Politics Live episode I’ll call, ‘where are they now?’
This is my first opportunity to share a most wonderful exit interview by the government’s former Senate leader Eric Abetz.
Among many choice maxims and reflections, Abetz has told the Australian’s media editor, Sharri Markson, today that the Canberra press gallery suffers from a dreadful case of group think when it comes to reporting on MPs of a strong Christian persuasion.
Take it away Eric:
Journalists will need to explain why they do this, but it is very clear that if somebody swears their oath on the Koran, this is a wonderful expression of diversity and to be encouraged, whereas if you swear your oath on the Bible then you’re an old fart and not to be taken seriously. Well, excuse me, what’s the difference? There is a special negative-sentiment override for those that profess the Christian faith.
Journalists just won’t give poor conservatives a break:
I’m terribly loyal to my new leader but you might comment on the flirtatious approach of Leigh Sales when she interviewed Turnbull. Just ask yourself the question, did Leigh Sales ever apologise for interrupting Tony Abbott? If you’re a conservative, you’re fair game to be interrupted.
While still on the dearly departed, Mike Bowers has been for a stroll around downstairs to capture Joe Hockey’s zen mindset, post treasury.
This picture greets visitors to Hockey’s new, more modest, parliamentary digs. Seinfeld fans will know this is the soup Nazi. No soup for Joe. We can read this public display of rebuff in many different ways but I think it’s an excellent sign. Looks like he’s settling in to post-treasury life nicely.
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Refugee advocate Pamela Curr is on ABC radio in Melbourne now. Curr is one of the people who (presumably) has just been branded a fabricator by PDuddy.
Curr says it’s true that some “facts” in the case are disputed, but she’s sticking by her version of events. Curr says, concerning the termination, she believes the woman was not given a chance to say what she wanted.
ABC host Jon Faine asks her whether she’s using the circumstances of this individual case to contrive permanent residency for this woman.
Curr doesn’t address Faine’s point specifically but says she works in a contentious field.
She says if you position yourself on the side of human rights in the Australian asylum debate, things will get willing.
Pamela Curr:
That is the nature of a contentious policy.
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Dutton was doorstopped by journalists shortly after his grilling on Radio National.
He reiterated the point that Australia sent the 23-year old Somali refugee known as Abyan back to Nauru because she changed her mind about having an abortion, and only after she was reviewed by medical professionals.
Counselling and other services were provided to Abyan even before she arrived in Australia, Dutton said. “I am advised that counselling was provided to the lady before she departed Nauru, and assistance otherwise no doubt,” the immigration minister said. He has not ruled out bringing the woman, who alleges that she was raped on Nauru, back to Australia if she decides she does want the termination. “We’ll make a decision that we believe is in the best interests of the patient,” Dutton said. “That will be the test that we apply.”
The immigration minister also refuted claims from a New Zealand MP, as first reported by Guardian Australia on Saturday, that Kiwis sentenced and jailed for minor offences were among the detainees awaiting deportation from Australian facilities. He did, however, admit that security on Christmas Island was being beefed up, as the detention facility there is being increasingly used to house bikie gang members and other high risk offenders awaiting deportation. “It is true that there have been upgrades at the Christmas Island facility because we... will cancel visas of people who pose significant risk to the Australian public, as well as people otherwise who have had their visas cancelled,” Dutton said.
Peter Dutton: "The accounts have shifted in the last few days .."
The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has been interviewed by ABC’s Radio National about the truly terrible case of a Somali refugee allegedly raped and impregnated on Nauru.
Controversy about this case has raged over this past weekend.
As my colleague Shalailah Medhora reports, the 23-year old woman, known as Abyan, was flown back to Nauru from Australia on Friday. The refugee had been in Australia for an abortion, a procedure difficult to access on Nauru.
Dutton has said Abyan was flown back out of Australia because she had changed her mind about having the termination. He denied claims that she was removed before lawyers could seek an injunction prohibiting her return to Nauru. But the refugee’s lawyer, George Newhouse, told Guardian Australia she had not changed her mind about wanting a termination.
Dutton has evidently had enough of being the bad guy. During his ABC interview, he unloaded on the advocates attempting to assist the woman – accusing refugee advocates of a gross breach of the woman’s privacy, and worse, of “trading off this lady’s very difficult circumstances”.
He’s also alleged various (unnamed) people have fabricated accounts of what’s occurred over the past few days. Dutton told his host, Fran Kelly, accounts of her treatment and circumstances “have shifted over the past few days.” PDuddy thinks the advocates should be held to account for the inconsistencies.
PDuddy says the government has been trying to assist the woman – hence the charter flight to Australia and then transport back to Nauru. Asked whether she’ll be permitted to return to Australia for a termination, Dutton said the government would seek to act in the woman’s best interests, however the government was in the business of providing medical support, not migration outcomes.
The woman issued a handwritten statement over the weekend via her lawyer, which has been published by Fairfax.
It reads:
I was raped on Nauru. I have been very sick. I have never said thate [sic] I did not want a termination. I never saw a doctor. I saw a nurse at a clinic but there was no counselling. I [also] saw a nurse at Villawood but there was no interpreter. I asked but was not allowed to talk with my lawyer.
Please help me.
If you need one story to give you a clean read-through of the weekend events, here’s the latest news wrap from my colleague Ben Doherty.
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Good morning good people
Good morning and welcome to Monday in Canberra. The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, and the opinion polls are bouncing. More than likely.
Fairfax Media’s Ipsos poll, published in the various outlets this morning, has the Coalition ahead of Labor 53-47 on two-party-preferred terms, and Malcolm Turnbull has opened up a crushing lead as preferred prime minister. It’s the best poll for the Coalition since the last federal election. Last week, the Newspoll had good news for Turnbull personally as well – a positive reception from voters – but the major parties were deadlocked on 50-50.
Just a general observation. It’s pretty obvious Turnbull has delivered a sugar hit for the government. Given Tony Abbott’s consistently dreadful poll numbers, and with due respect to the new prime minister, anyone credible who wasn’t Tony Abbott would deliver a poll bounce for the government. The question is how substantial – and can the improvement be sustained? Theoretically at least, we are a year out from the next election, and a budget and a tax policy and other challenges lie in between then and now.
Another general observation. Ipsos seems more volatile than other major newspaper opinion polls.
The Australian Financial Review’s political editor, Laura Tingle, reflects on the gap between the two surveys in a comment piece this morning.
Now it is possible that in the last week, particularly in the wake of the Cayman Islands affair, voters’ views on Turnbull have crystallised. Alternatively, it may be that Newspoll didn’t quite pick the strength of a trend to the new prime minister and Ipsos has picked up more of a trend than was actually there. The bottom line for our pollies, though, is that the Ipsos poll is going to leave Labor feeling very sick – and the Coalition very relieved.
Tingle points out, correctly of course, that the trend (teensy thing that it currently is) is our friend.
The underlying trends – the surge of support for Turnbull, the relief that Tony Abbott is gone, and the rise in the Coalition’s primary vote and decline in Labor’s primary vote – are not in dispute among pollsters doing quantitative and qualitative polling.
If we screen out the noise, and cut to the chase, right now, you’d rather be Malcolm Turnbull than Bill Shorten, with the obvious caveats – a long way to go, anything can happen, and so on and so forth.
Rather like Politics Live. Long way to go. Anything can happen – and it very often does. In recognition of these verities I’ve opened the comments thread, and will do my best to visit throughout the day. We are also up and at ‘em on the Twits @murpharoo and @mpbowers
Buckle up, here comes Monday.
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